MetLife Among Investors Giving $220 Million To Oklahoma Wind Power Project

MetLife is among a group of investors that will contribute $220 million to a wind-power project that sprawls over 45,000 acres of north central Oklahoma.

The syndicate of investors led by J.P. Morgan includes Wells Fargo Wind Holdings LLC and MetLife, officially, Metropolitan Life Insurance Company. The funding will be provided in the last three months of the year for the Chisholm View Wind project. Chisholm View Wind project involves 140 wind turbines across land owned by more than 150 different owners in Garfield and Grant counties, Okla.

The project is actually mid-sized compared with other big farms of wind turbines in the middle of the U.S. that cover areas from a few thousand acres to more than 100,000 acres.

MetLife, which has major operations in Bloomfield, would not say how much of the $220 million it will contribute.

Electricity produced by Chisholm View will be sold to Alabama Power Company, a subsidiary of Atlanta, Ga.,- based Southern Company. The goal is to provide clean energy for about 80,000 Alabama homes.

A subsidiary of Norwalk-based General Electric Capital — EFS Chisholm LLC — holds a 51 percent cash equity stake in the wind project and the other 49 percent is held by Enel Green Power North America, a subsidiary of a Rome, Italy,-based company. Enel Green Power has an option to buy 26 percent of EFS Chisholm's stake in the project this year or next year.

The investors are providing funds as part of a tax equity agreement — investors receive tax benefits by contributing cash to a business that generates renewable energy. The equity interest allows investors to obtain a percentage of the fiscal benefits from the wind project.